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Racy emails weren't unusual in the attorney general's office, according to Kane release

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State police Commissioner Frank Noonan and state Environmental Protection Secretary Christopher Abruzzo were among those who received sexually suggestive emails in their inbox when they worked for the Attorney General's office between 2008 and 2011.
(File photo/Pennlive)

One file, titled "NASCAR victory," showed a decidedly sexual turn on the traditional uncorking of a bottle of champagne by a character portraying the winning driver of a stock car race.

Another, called "Delta Faucet commercial," invited the viewer to follow a stream of running water into the private parts of a woman stretched out in a tub below.

Then there were the series of inspirational photos, with captions such as "Courage," "Resourcefulness," and "Devotion," all headlining photos of naked women living up to the words - in the cause of pornography at least.

However raunchy, stimulating or funny they may have seemed at the time, the sexually-charged emails became a source of embarrassment and anger Thursday for a small set of former attorney general staffers - including two of Gov. Tom Corbett's cabinet members - whose inboxes they landed in during the Corbett and Linda Kelly administrations at Strawberry Square.

Kane, her office said, "believes transparency on this issue is a very good way to help ensure that the exchanging of sexually explicit materials through internal emails on state-owned equipment... doesn't happen elsewhere."

Others saw it as just the latest punch in an increasingly bitter war between Democrat Kane and the mostly Republican staffers who led the state's main legal office before Kane took office in January 2013.

Kane's critics howled, albeit mostly privately, at the idea that the current attorney general would release emails embarrassing a select group of former Corbett staffers, even as an unknown number of current employees went unnamed.

Some called it a bold-faced political hit-job coming in the midst of Corbett's campaign for a second term as governor.

But Kane spokesman Renee Martin said the office was simply being as transparent and responsive to media requests as it could, while trying to honor its own human resource policies and current union agreements.

The whispers made their way to the Capitol press corps, and eventually, they became the topic of Right to Know Law requests from a number of news organizations, including PennLive.

In the partial release screened for reporters Thursday, emails were shared from eight former AG staffers. The content ranged from off-color greeting card humor to leave-nothing-to-the-imagination sex tapes.

Those figuring in Thursday's release included:

Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan, who previously served as chief of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in the Corbett's Attorney General's office.

Efforts to reach Noonan, whose agency has been consumed with the manhunt for the killer suspected in the ambush at the Blooming Grove barracks, were not successful for this report.

Secretary of Environmental Protection E. Christopher Abruzzo, who worked as Corbett's chief deputy leading OAG's Drug Strike Force before following Corbett to the Capitol in 2011 and later becoming DEP secretary.

Abruzzo's file held 46 of the racy emails, according to Kane's office, and appears to have sent eight of those to others. Abruzzo did not respond to an interview request left at his office.

Corbett's former press secretary Kevin Harley, now a public relations consultant in Harrisburg. Kane's office showed files from Harley's email account but could provide no totals.

Harley did not return a telephone message.

Randy Feathers, a now-retired criminal agent involved in the Sandusky investigation who has since been appointed by Corbett to the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole.

Feathers' inbox held 436 of the emails and according to Kane's data, he forwarded 40 of them.

Feathers issued a statement through the Parole Board on Thursday, saying only that: "The images that were released to reporters today are not a reflection of my professional behavior and I don't condone this activity."

Patrick Blessington, one of the prosecutors involved in Corbett's legislative corruption cases, currently a division chief in the office of Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams.

Again, while Kane's agents showed files in Blessington's email account, the office had no aggregate figures.

Blessington did not respond to an emailed request for comment to his Philadelphia office.

Glenn Parno, a former chief deputy attorney general in charge of Corbett's environmental crimes section. Parno, according to Kane's office, received 178 emails, and sent 10.

He did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Christopher Carusone, the former chief of the appellate section in Corbett's Attorney General's office. Carusone followed Corbett to the Capitol, eventually serving as the governor's legislative secretary before joining the Conrad O'Brien law firm.

According to Kane's data, he was on the receiving end of 52 of the offending emails, and sent three.

Richard A. Sheetz Jr., the former director of the Attorney General's Criminal Law Division. Kane's office had no information about the volume of material in Sheetz's inbox, and he did not respond to a telephone call to his home.

Martin conceded Thursday that no laws were broken through the distribution of the emails, screened for reporters Thursday in a Strawberry Square conference room because Kane did not want her staff to transmit the material.

Corbett, incidentally, has said in recent interviews that he had no knowledge of the emails, and sources familiar with the materials have agreed that there was no sign he or his First Deputy William J. Ryan were ever in the loop.

Thursday's releases was limited in many respects, none more jarring in than that Kane's staff could not provide any confirmation that any of the emails they showed had actually been viewed by the recipients.

They also had redacted any information about who had sent the emails to the recipients, or dates and times.

It was also clear that the eight persons outed Thursday represent only a portion of the attorney general staffers - former and current - who were getting the emails.

Martin said she could not comment on the reasons behind the restrictive release, other than to note that the office was bound by union rules, human resource policies and other factors.

She said Kane was doing her best to be a responsive as it could to the series of Right to Know requests that had filtered in through the summer, and added that more information could be forthcoming as early as Friday.

But the release also comes in the course of tense struggle between Kane and many of Corbett's former staffers.

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